5 years after Britain left the EU, the full impact of Brexit is still emerging
Friday marks five years since Britain left the European Union at 11 p.m. on Jan. 31, 2020
LONDON — LONDON (AP) — Five years ago Friday, two crowds of people gathered near Britain’s Parliament — some with Union Jacks and cheers, others European Union flags and tears.
On Jan. 31, 2020 at 11 p.m. London time – midnight at EU headquarters in Brussels — the U.K. officially left the bloc after almost five decades of membership that had brought free movement and free trade between Britain and 27 other European countries.
For Brexit supporters, the U.K. was now a sovereign nation in charge of its own destiny. For opponents, it was an isolated and diminished country.
It was, inarguably, a divided nation that had taken a leap into the dark. Five years on, people and businesses are still wrestling with the economic, social and cultural aftershocks.
“The impact has been really quite profound,” said political scientist Anand Menon, who heads the think-tank U.K. in a Changing Europe. “It’s changed our economy.
“And our politics has been changed quite fundamentally as well,” he added. “We’ve seen a new division around Brexit becoming part of electoral politics.”
An island nation with a robust sense of its historical importance, Britain had long been an uneasy member of the EU when it held a referendum in June 2016 on whether to remain or leave. Decades of deindustrialization, followed by years of public spending cuts and high immigration, made fertile ground for the argument that Brexit would let the U.K. “take back control” of its borders, laws and economy.
Yet the result — 52% to 48% in favor of leaving — came as a shock to many. Neither the Conservative government, which campaigned to stay in the EU, nor pro-Brexit campaigners had
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